Stephen Lees is an established artist based in Leslie Vale, Tasmania. With an acute awareness of art history, including the principles that govern traditional painting techniques, Lees has forged a highly distinctive career which remains peerless within the Tasmanian landscape genre.
Slowly built up through both opaque and transparent layers, Lees’ process honours techniques that defined painting from the 17th and 18th century. Underpinning Lees’ practice is a deep appreciation for how light and form define the aesthetics of the painted image, including how elements can coalesce in a rich and layered surface. Through this careful use of paint, we see an unmistakable admiration for nature, honouring its subtle complexity, receding depth and shifting tones. Distinctive to each composition is a seamless shift between both recognisable and imagined spaces. Here, representation is only a suggestion and quickly fades to reveal something more knowing, where Lees reveals the temperament of the landscape and how it is experienced.
This piece was held in a private collection Melbourne and is presented in its original frame. The work is signed lower right. This work was originally exhibited as part of Lees solo show in 2003 – there were only fifteen works in the show all of which were sold.
‘In 1998, Lees had been to Paris on a residency at the Rosalind McChulloch studio and surrounds, he painted fifteen works which were then presented as part of a solo show at Despard Gallery in 2003 totled Paris to Versailles. The medium and tone that run through the series was of a nineteenth century rather than the twentieth, the foggy atmosphere around the banks of the Seine appear to permeate every surface.’
STEPHEN LEES
Basilica of St Marie Madeleine 1998/2003
gouache on board
50 x 50 cm
Signed lower right
[original frame]
$3,500
PROVENANCE: Private Collection Melbourne, Originally exhibited Paris and Vezelay Despard Gallery 2003.
